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The Attorney General's Office said state police and Fish and Game crews planned to search the area Tuesday and Wednesday. Officials said there was no new information that prompted the search, but divers now have new techniques, training and resources that allow them to search new areas.

“This is an area we have always wanted to search. This is an area that we have always been interested in,” Assistant Attorney General Ben Agati said. “Not only the people who interacted with them, but the community wants to know what happened.”

Divers searched both sides of the Vernon Dam and focused on a half-mile area. Police have searched for the two for years, but now they have side-scan sonar and sector sonar to make things easier.

The water is more than 50 feet deep, but the visibility is only 4 feet.

Despite all that, searchers were still able to go farther with the search than they ever have.

“Today, we had scuba teams out that were beyond the barriers and they could touch the side of the dam,” Agati said. “That’s how close they were able to get, and new spots that were not able to get to before.”

Bethany Sinclair and her mother, Tina Sinclair, were last seen together in Chesterfield during the weekend of Feb. 3-4, 2001. Tina Sinclair last went to her job and Bethany Sinclair last attended school on Feb. 2, 2001. Tina Sinclair was 36 years old at the time, and Bethany Sinclair was 15.

Before that weekend, Tina and Bethany Sinclair lived in West Chesterfield at the home of Tina Sinclair’s boyfriend, Eugene Van Bowman, at 182 Mountain Road.